Every Man's the Same
by KaraokeQueen88
Summary: Sitting in a bar open way past the end of office hours, a woman ponders the one that got away and her life without him. Set around about series 5.


_She's forty-one years old, an' she's so pretty_

I'm so lonely, that's all that ever goes through my head on nights like this one. I'm at my desk in work at seven in the morning because I can't sleep any later than five. I never get home before midnight, because I'm only going home to an empty house. And during all those hours of important decision making, I can't figure out when I got old.

_Men all turn their heads as she walks by. __  
_  
They still look at me as I walk past, they compliment my hair and my eyes and my figure. I flirt with men seventeen hours a day, seven days a week.

_But sometimes when she looks into the mirror,_

I try and avoid mirrors, which is easy in the busy atmosphere of my job. Yet I still see myself on the screens. And I try to avoid them too.

_She finds another line, an' then she'll cry._

I try not to let it bother me. But the fact that I seem to have reached my two score and ten over the past few short years eludes me.

_So she goes down to a bar, an' there, she listens,_

Sometimes, when I have no excuse to stay in the office but I can't face going home, I go to one of the local bars just like this one.__

_To the same old line from a man she's never seen._

The man I talk to is different each night yet always the same. Average height and weight, nondescript hair, pale eyes, watery smile; a man that you wouldn't notice in a crowd. And the lines are always the same too. The quick glance over. The "Don't I know you from somewhere?". The exasperation as they try to figure it out. The drinks they buy to make me tell. The way I seem to emasculate them when I won't tell them, or let them walk me home. "I don't kiss and tell," I joke, and the old cliche seems to refer to both the men and my work somehow.

_She tells herself she's just alone, not lonely, __  
__But at times it's hard to draw the line between_

It sometimes takes me an hour to walk home, depending on where I've got to that night. The guys would have a fit if they ever knew, but they don't. They can call my cell phone and I can tell them where I am. And for the first time in the day I can lie and not feel bad about it.

_She's free but she's not easy. __  
_  
I'm not easy; I've had two one night stands in my entire life and I'd do anything to take one of those back. I'm difficult to be with too; I guess I'm not easy in any sense at all.

_She's got wings and she can fly. __  
__But she chooses who she's gonna fly with,_

They'll always be subserviant to me, they know that and I know that, which turns men away. My success intimidates them somewhat. And that's ok, because I rarely find one I would choose to be with anyway.

_An' she chooses when to be alone at night._

If I'm walking home from one of those bars on my own, that is my choice. For any of them would come with me of an evening. But I want something with a bit of meaning behind it, not seven one night stands a week.

_She thinks about a man she almost married: __  
__She couldn't love him but she really tried._

I still can't believe I let him get away. Him. Still with a capital letter in my mind. Sometimes I think he really was my only one and I wonder if he'll ever come back, for we are still in touch from time to time. He would have to be crazy though. For even if he came back now, there are still years to wait before I'm free to be with him. I could have loved him once.

_And on the night she told him it was over,_

I told him "no" a million times and he kept trying; I've never known anyone to persue me like that. And it melted my heart, I fell head over heels for him.

_She almost made it home before she cried._

The night I realised it was never going to be - or at least not in this lifetime - I cried all night. I hadn't cried like that in years, it takes a great deal to make me cry.

_Tonight, she's all alone in her apartment: __  
__By now, she's learned to make it on her own._

I learned to look after myself a long time ago. I make my own food, when I eat at home which is rarely. I don't need a man to cook or clean or change the fuses, I can do all that. It doesn't mean I always like to.

_ She lies awake an' thinks about her freedom,_

I don't know if I'm truly free. I don't think I am sometimes. I'm chronically insomniac, or at least I would be if I didn't work til all hours of the night. Usually, exhaustion overcomes me and I don't have to lie awake and think. I work myself to the brink of collapse so that when I do sleep, I don't think and I don't dream, for when I do, I still dream of him.

_And the price she pays for the right to be alone. __  
_  
My work is my world, and I love it - I do! I'm good at it; I'm amazing at it! But just sometimes, it seems a high price to pay for going home on your own every night.

_She's free but she's not easy._

I always wondered why he tried so hard. He would never see me, except if he passed my office once in a while, or I turned up on his doorstep at midnight, three drinks past drunk and twenty four hours past physically exhausted.

_She's got wings and she can fly._

I'm so in control, everyone thinks that. Sometimes I want to scream at them, yet, usually, I restrain myself.

_But she chooses who she's gonna fly with,_

I chose him, and I wish to God I could tell him that. In my head, I chose him months ago; years even. I wonder if it really is too late now, or if this is just another night of feeling maudlin and sorry for myself. I wish they would switch off the bloody radio in this place, it's starting to make my head ache. I can hear footsteps behind me.

_Yeah, she chooses who she's gonna fly with_

"Hey do I know you from somewhere?"

Maybe if I just went home and picked up the phone

_An' she chooses..._

"Excuse me? Do I know you from somewhere?"

I turn around and get to my feet

_Yeah, she chooses...__  
_  
"No."

I start to head towards the door, feeling the smallest ray of hope begin to creep in

_An' she chooses when to be alone at night..._

"Nowhere at all"

_She chooses when to be alone at night_


End file.
